Note of Nothing
by Sythe
Summary: Mana pays a visit to the dead. MahadoxMana


Emperor, your sword won't help you out

Disclaimer: I do not own anything except the plot, if you want to practice copyright law, go find someone else.

_**Note o' Nothing**_

-o0o-

_Emperor, your sword won't help you out_

_Sceptre and crown are worthless here_

_I've taken you by the hand_

_For you must come to my dance._

_La Danse Macabre, __Vierzeiliger oberdeutscher Totentanz, 1460_

-o0o-

The pathway into the temple was hot under the afternoon sun, winding its length over a patch of the Nile in intricate loops. Her feet carried her almost without any instruction. Her eyes were closed from the first gate for there was no need for them except for more reminders. She knew this place by the pebbles it was made off, by every tiny sand dune that was placed at every passing door as blessing of the desert. The tablets passed by her unseen, shrouded in the shade of the temple. She counted them in her mind.

Elf. Knight. Then dragon…

And here he was, in the middle of the room, held in a pedestal high up above all others he once guarded and commanded. His face was arched in sharp angles, his body carved into unmoving lines. His eyes were no longer a warm tingling brown but blotches of sandy colored stone.

Mana did not open her eyes, and without missing a beat she sat down with her back facing him. His cool crisp air pressed onto her like invisible hands, wafting in the cold and lifeless feel of carved rock.

Mana did not say anything for there was nothing to say. She did not turn back to steal a glance at him. She had looked plenty and had cried just as plenty when he was brought here, when they draped him in richly colored linen, when they sprayed him with fragranced water, when they came and worshipped him and asked for blessing from him, when they finally forgot him as they found new gods, new sacrifices. And here he was again…all for her.

Her back was inches away from him but she took great care never to touch him.

With a move, swiftly clean cut through the hundred of times it was done before, she took a roll of papyrus from her satchel bag and spread it on her lap.

It was only then that she opened her eyes, her gaze settling effortlessly on the familiar lines of the papyrus, tracing them lovingly.

It would start with…

'The principle of magic is…'

Then it would go on, and would end meters down from its beginning with a line saying…

'If there is enough will and enough power, nothing is impossible.'

Mana's eyes did not stray from the first word. She did not need to look down to recite the text in her head.

Why should she when she had just done so yesterday, had already done so a hundred times before, aloud to him in hiccups, in sighs, in smiles and shy giggles. She had read it to him a hundred times, every day, every morning, noon, and night, echoing a time long ago when a budding magician had read to her. Her very first book. Her very first dream.

But today was not yesterday nor was it the day before that. Today, Mana simply sat, and waited.

Time stretched. Her body ached. Then there was a sound from far away. A long whining horn.

They were burying him in the valley, in the tomb that took years to get ready for its owner. He was still so young and no one had suspected he'd need it so soon.

'Life is fragile, isn't it?' She told him.

'Nothing is impossible? …really?' there was no sound, no words exchanged but an impenetrable silence. This temple echoed and these sound if voiced was, would be forbidden.

Slowly, very slowly, she turned her head upward, her eyes shifting down under thick rows of eyelashes so that she could only see the edge of the stone and not him. So that there would be no reminder. She didn't think of the other him they were burying. The one dried and hollowed out, clothed in strips of linen. Nothing but a husk, an empty shell.

This him too felt flat, a uniformed maze of lines on hard surface. There was no warmth, no secretive glances hidden under linen veil, no soft feel of lips pressing on the tips of her ears, no breezy whispering, no nothing…

This him felt cruel.

"He proposed to me" She said finally in a scratchy voice. There was no name as she could not remember it. The man's face too was blurred into long hair and soft brown eyes framed with white linen. Every man had spotted long hair and soft brown eyes since that day. None of them had names.

"He's a good man. The son of a scholar. He'd go far. Perhaps he'd serve under the feet of the pharaoh one day." Perhaps not. Perhaps he only married her for her political gain, or her mystical power, or more. But what did it matter? He was a man, and he was alive.

Soft hot flesh pressing against her, the teasing linen pulling on her taut skin, the drapes of callused fingers. Her heart died a slow death, dragging on the rise and fall of the sun, on memories.

The stone tablet said nothing.

The papyrus weighted down in her lap, a very physical reminder. Mana swarmed in her own thoughts. Her lips brushed against each other, relishing in the feel and the salty taste.

Nothing is impossible? Was death impossible too oh High Priest, invincible magician?

She did not feel bitter, only a bone-deep longing. She had a dream once, of endless possibilities, of no boundary, of secret promises…

She took a breath. The air felt like cool liquid in her throat. The whispery sound that escaped was so faint, so delicate that it almost drowned in the blowing of wind through the tunnels of the temple.

"…liar…"

Sha sat still and waited till the horn and the drum died out, till dusk settled on the steps of the temple. It was only then that Mana stood up and left without a sound, without even turning back.

The papyrus stayed behind in silent company to the stone tablet, the echo of a ghost, of a haunting past. He would not go after her, would not hold her, would not whisper to her. This she knew for years now.

Perhaps one day she'd come to accept it too. Perhaps one day she would stop dreaming.

After all, she was a dark magician, and so too was he. What could there be between shadow? Nothing but illusions, nothing but dreams…nothing at all.

**The End**

This whole thing was built on the concept that what unexpected death would have felt like to these two people, Mana and Mahado. I imagined that they must have felt invincible with the sort of power they wield (there was healing magic in yugioh card game after all) and death must have come as quite a shock.

If you need to know, the relationship between master and apprentice was forbidden. The practice of marrying in the family was only within the pharaoh lineage as a political tool and as neither Maha nor Mahado was of royalty, there is little chance that there relationship will be accepted. The best she could have gone was become his mistress and that's it. Unequaled status and all that is also a bonus.

Hope you enjoy that and if you don't…well, I tried.

Sythe


End file.
